Newton consulted with his father relative to the disposal of the trunk; but Nicholas could assist him but little with his advice. After many pros and cons, like all other difficult matters, it was postponed.— “Really, Newton, I can’t say. The property certainly is not yours, but still we are not likely to find out the lawful owner. Bring the trunk on shore, we’ll nail it up, and perhaps we may hear something about it by and bye. We’ll make some inquiries — by and bye — when your mother—”

  “I think,” interrupted Newton, “it would not be advisable to acquaint my mother with the circumstance; but how to satisfy her curiosity on that point, I must leave to you.”

  “To me, boy! no; I think that you had better manage that, for you know you are only occasionally at home.”

  “Well, father, be it so,” replied Newton, laughing: “but here comes Mr Dragwell and Mr Hilton, to consult with us what ought to be done relative to the effects of poor old Thompson. He has neither kith nor kin, to the ninety-ninth degree, that we can find out.”

  Mr Dragwell was the curate of the parish; a little fat man with bow-legs, who always sat upon the edge of the chair, leaning against the back, and twiddling his thumbs before him. He was facetious and good-tempered, but was very dilatory in every thing. His greatest peculiarity was, that although he had a hearty laugh for every joke, he did not take the jokes of others at the time that they were made. His ideas seemed to have the slow and silent flow ascribed to the stream of lava (without its fire): and the consequence was, that although he eventually laughed at a good thing, it was never at the same time with other people; but in about a quarter or half a minute afterwards (according to the difficulty of the analysis), when the cause had been dismissed for other topics, he would burst out in a hearty Ha, ha, ha!

  Mr Hilton was the owner of the sloop: he was a tall, corpulent man, who for many years had charge of a similar vessel, until by “doing a little contraband,” he had pocketed a sufficient sum to enable him to purchase one for himself. But the profits being more than sufficient for his wants, he had for some time remained on shore, old Thompson having charge of the vessel. He was a good-tempered, jolly fellow, very fond of his pipe and his pot, and much more fond of his sloop, by the employment of which he was supplied with all his comforts. He passed most of the day sitting at the door of his house, which looked upon the anchorage, exchanging a few words with every one that passed by, but invariably upon one and the same topic — his sloop. If she was at anchor— “There she is,” he would say, pointing to her with the stem of his pipe. If she was away, she had sailed on such a day; — he expected her back at such a time. It was a fair wind — it was a foul wind for his sloop. All his ideas were engrossed by this one darling object, and it was no easy task to divert him from it.

  I ought to have mentioned that Mr Dragwell, the curate, was invariably accompanied by Mr Spinney, the clerk of the parish, a little spare man, with a few white hairs straggling on each side of a bald pate. He always took his tune whether in or out of church from his superior, ejecting a small treble “He, he, he!” in response to the loud Ha, ha, ha! of the curate.

  “Peace be unto this house!” observed the curate as he crossed the threshold, for Mrs Forster’s character was notorious; then laughing at his own wit with a Ha, ha, ha!

  “He, he, he!”

  “Good morning, Mr Forster, how is your good lady?”

  “She’s safe moored at last,” interrupted Mr Hilton.

  “Who?” demanded the curate, with surprise.

  “Why, the sloop, to be sure.”

  “Oh! I thought you meant the lady — Ha, ha, ha!”

  “He, he, he!”

  “Won’t you sit down, gentlemen?” said Nicholas, showing the way from the shop into the parlour, where they found Mrs Forster, who had just come in from the back premises.

  “Hope you’re well, Mr Curate,” sharply observed the lady, who could not be persuaded, even from respect for the cloth, to be commonly civil— “take a chair; it’s all covered with dust! but that Betsy is such an idle slut!”

  “Newton handles her, as well as any man going,” observed Hilton.

  “Newton!” screamed the lady, turning to her son, with an angry inquiring look— “Newton handles Betsy!” continued she, turning round to Hilton.

  “Betsy! no; the sloop I meant, ma’am.”

  Newton burst out into a laugh, in which he was joined by Hilton and his father.

  “Sad business — sad indeed!” said Hilton, after the merriment had subsided, “such an awful death!”

  “Ha, ha, ha!” roared the curate, who had but just then taken the joke about Betsy.

  “He, he, he!”

  “Nothing to laugh at, that I can see,” observed Mrs Forster, snappishly.

  “Capital joke, ma’am, I assure you!” rejoined the curate; “but, Mr Forster, we had better proceed to business. Spinney, where are the papers?” The clerk produced an inventory of the effects of the late Mr Thompson, and laid them on the table.— “Melancholy thing, this, ma’am,” continued the curate, “very melancholy indeed! But we must all die.”

  “Yes, thank Heaven!” muttered Nicholas, in an absent manner.

  “Thank Heaven, Mr Forster!” cried the lady,— “why, do you wish to die?”

  “I was not exactly thinking about myself, my dear,” replied Nicholas— “I—”

  “Depend upon it she’ll last a long while yet,” interrupted Mr Hilton.

  “Do you think so?” replied Nicholas, mournfully.

  “Oh! sure of it; I stripped her the other day, and examined her all over; she’s as sound as ever.”

  Nicholas started, and stared Hilton in the face; while Newton, who perceived their separate train of thought, tittered with delight.

  “What are you talking of?” at last observed Nicholas.

  “Of the sloop, to be sure,” replied Hilton.

  “I rather imagine you were come to consult about Mr Thompson’s effects,” observed Mrs Forster, angrily— “rather a solemn subject, instead of—”

  “Ha, ha, ha!” ejaculated the curate, who had just taken the equivoque which had occasioned Newton’s mirth.

  “He, he, he!”

  This last merriment of Mr Dragwell appeared to the lady to be such a pointed insult to her, that she bounded out of the room, exclaiming, “that an alehouse would have been a more suitable rendezvous.”

  The curate twiddled his thumbs, as the eyes of all the party followed the exit of Mrs Forster; and there were a few moments of silence.

  “Don’t you find her a pleasant little craft, Forster?” said Hilton, addressing Newton.

  Nicholas Forster, who was in a brown study about his wife, shook his head without lifting up his eyes, while Newton nodded assent.

  “Plenty of accommodation in her,” continued Hilton. — Another negative shake from Nicholas, and assentent nod from Newton.

  “If I thought you could manage her, Forster,” continued Hilton,— “tell me, what do you think yourself?”

  “Oh, quite impossible!” replied Nicholas.

  “Quite impossible, Mr Forster! well, now, I’ve a better opinion of Newton — I think he can.”

  “Why, yes,” replied Nicholas, “certainly better than I can; but still she’s—”

  “She’s a beauty, Mr Forster.”

  “Mrs Forster a beauty,” cried Nicholas, looking at Hilton with astonishment.

  Newton and Hilton burst into a laugh. “No, no,” said the latter, “I was talking about the sloop; but we had better proceed to business. Suppose we have pipes, Mr Forster. Mr Dragwell, what do you say?”

  “Ha, ha, ha!” roared the curate, who had just taken the last joke.

  “He, he, he!”

  “Why, yes,” continued the curate, “I think it is a most excellent proposition; this melancholy affair requires a great deal of consideration. I never compose so well as I do with a pipe in my mouth: Mrs Dragwell says that she knows all my best sermons by the smell of them; d’ye take — Ha, ha, ha!”

  “He, he, he!”

  The pipes, with the addition of a couple of pots of porter, were soon procured from the neighbouring alehouse; and while the parties are filling them, and pushing the paper of tobacco from one to the other, I shall digress, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of the other sex, in praise of this most potent and delightful weed.

  I love thee, whether thou appearest in the shape of a cigar, or diest away in sweet perfume enshrined in the Mereshaum bowl; I love thee with more than woman’s love! Thou art a companion to me in solitude. I can talk and reason with thee, avoiding loud and obstreperous argument. Thou art a friend to me when in trouble, for thou advisest in silence, and consolest with thy calm influence over the perturbed spirit.

  I know not how thy power has been bestowed upon thee; yet, if to harmonise the feelings, to allow the thoughts to spring without control, rising like the white vapour from the cottage hearth, on a morning that is sunny and serene; — if to impart that sober sadness over the spirit, which inclines us to forgive our enemy, that calm philosophy which reconciles us to the ingratitude and knavery of the world, that heavenly contemplation whispering to us, as we look around, that “All is good;” — if these be merits, they are thine, most potent weed.

  What a quiet world would this be if every one would smoke! I suspect that the reason why the fairer sex decry thee is, that thou art the cause of silence. The ancients knew thee not, or the lips of Harpocrates would have been closed with a cigar, and his fore-finger removed from the mouth unto the temple.

  Half an hour was passed without any observation from our party, as the room gradually filled with the volumes of smoke which wreathed and curled in graceful lines, as they ascended in obedience to the unchangeable laws of nature.

  Hilton’s pipe was first exhausted; he shook the ashes on the table. “A very melancholy business, indeed!” observed he, as he refilled. The rest nodded a grand assent; the pipe was relighted; and all was silent as before.

  Another pipe is empty.— “Looking at this inventory,” said the curate, “I should imagine the articles to be of no great value. One fur cap, one round hat, one pair of plush breeches, one — ; they are not worth a couple of pounds altogether,” continued he, stuffing the tobacco into his pipe, which he relighted, and no more was said. Nicholas was the third in, or rather out. “It appears to me,” observed he; — but what appeared is lost, as some new idea flitted across his imagination, and he commenced his second pipe, without further remark.

  Some ten minutes after this, Mr Spinney handed the pot of porter to the curate, and subsequently to the rest of the party. They all took largely, then puffed away as before.

  How long this cabinet council might have continued it is impossible to say; but Silence, who was in “the chair,” was soon afterwards driven from his post of honour by the most implacable of his enemies, “a woman’s tongue.”

  “Well, Mr Forster! well, gentlemen! do you mean to poison me? Have you made smell and dirt enough? How long is this to last, I should like to know?” cried Mrs Forster, entering the room. “I tell you what, Mr Forster, you had better hang up a sign at once, and keep an alehouse. Let the sign be a Fool’s Head, like your own. I wonder you are not ashamed of yourself, Mr Curate; you that ought to set an example to your parishioners!”

  But Mr Dragwell did not admire such remonstrance; so taking his pipe out of his mouth, he retorted— “If your husband does put up a sign, I recommend him to stick you up as the ‘Good Woman;’ that would be without your head — Ha, ha, ha!”

  “He, he, he!”

  “He, he, he! you pitiful ‘natomy,” cried Mrs Forster, in a rage, turning to the clerk, as she dared not revenge herself upon the curate. Take that for your He, he, he! and she swung round the empty pewter-pot which she snatched from the table, upon the bald pericranium of Mr Spinney, who tumbled off his chair, and rolled upon the sanded floor.

  The remainder of the party were on their legs in an instant. Newton jerked the weapon out of his mother’s hands, and threw it in a corner of the room. Nicholas was aghast: he surmised that his turn would come next; and so it proved.— “An’t you ashamed of yourself, Mr Forster, to see me treated in this way — bringing a parcel of drunken men into the house to insult me? Will you order them out, or not, sir? — Are we to have quiet or not?”

  “Yes, my love,” replied Nicholas, confused, “yes, my dear, by and bye, as soon as you’re—”

  Mrs Forster darted towards her husband with the ferocity of a mad cat. Hilton perceiving the danger of his host, put out his leg so as to trip her up in her career, and she fell flat upon her face on the floor. The violence of the fall was so great, that she was stunned. Newton raised her up; and, with the assistance of his father (who approached with as much reluctance as a horse spurred towards a dead tiger), carried her up stairs, and laid her on her bed.

  Poor Mr Spinney was now raised from the floor. He still remained stupified with the blow, although gradually recovering. Betsy came in to render assistance. “O dear, Mr Curate, do you think that he’ll die?”

  “No, no; bring some water, Betsy, and throw it in his face.”

  “Better take him home as he is,” replied Betsy, “and say that he is killed; when Missis hears it, she’ll be frightened out of her life. It will keep her quiet for some time at least.”

  “An excellent idea, Betty; we will punish her for her conduct,” replied Hilton. The curate was delighted at the plan. Mr Spinney was placed in an arm-chair, covered over with a table-cloth, and carried away to the parsonage by two men, who were provided by Betsy before Nicholas or Newton had quitted the room where Mrs Forster lay in a deplorable condition: her sharp nose broken, and twisted on one side; her eyebrow cut open to the bone, and a violent contusion on her forehead. In less than half an hour it was spread through the whole town that Spinney had been murdered by Mrs Forster, and that his brains were bespattered all over the shop windows!

  Chapter Seven.

  That she is mad, ’tis true: ’tis true, ’tis pity;

  And pity ’tis, ’tis true: a foolish figure;

  But farewell it, for I will use no art.

  Mad let us grant her then; and now remains

  That we find out the cause of this effect,

  Or rather say, the cause of this defect.

  Shakespeare.

  Mr Dragwell has already made honourable mention of his wife; it will therefore only be necessary to add, that he had one daughter, a handsome lively girl, engaged to a Mr Ramsden, the new surgeon of the place, who had stepped into the shoes and the good-will of one who had retired from forty years’ practice upon the good people of Overton. Fanny Dragwell had many good qualities, and many others which were rather doubtful. One of the latter had procured her more enemies than at her age she had any right to expect. It was what the French term “malice,” which bears a very different signification from the same word in our own language. She delighted in all practical jokes, and would carry them to an excess, at the very idea of which others would be startled; but it must be acknowledged that she generally selected as her victims those who from their conduct towards others richly deserved retaliation. The various tricks which she had played upon certain cross old spinsters, tatlers, scandalmongers, and backbiters, often were the theme of conversation and of mirth: but this description of espiéglerie contains a most serious objection; which is, that to carry on a successful and well arranged plot, there must be a total disregard of truth. Latterly, Miss Fanny had had no one to practise upon except Mr Ramsden, during the period of his courtship — a period at which women never appear to so much advantage, nor men appear so silly. But even for this, the time was past, as latterly she had become so much attached to him that distress on his part was a source of annoyance to herself. When therefore her father came home, narrating the circumstances which had occurred, and the plan which had been meditated, Fanny entered gaily into the scheme. Mrs Forster had long been her abhorrence; and an insult to Mr Ramsden, who had latterly been designated by Mrs Forster as a “Pill-gilding Puppy,” was not to be forgotten. Her active and inventive mind immediately conceived a plan which would enable her to carry the joke much farther than the original projectors had intended. Ramsden, who had been summoned to attend poor Mr Spinney, was her sole confidant, and readily entered into a scheme which was pleasing to his mistress, and promised revenge for the treatment he had received; and which, as Miss Dragwell declared, would be nothing but retributive justice upon Mrs Forster.

  Late in the evening, a message was received from Newton Forster, requesting that Mr Ramsden would attend his mother. He had just visited the old clerk, who was now sensible, and had nothing to complain of except a deep cut on his temple from the rim of the pewter-pot. After receiving a few parting injunctions from Miss Dragwell, Mr Ramsden quitted the parsonage.

  “I am afraid it’s a very bad business, Mr Forster,” replied the surgeon to Newton, who had been interrogating him relative to the injury received by Mr Spinney. “Evident concussion of the brain: he may live — or he may not; a few days will decide the point: he is a poor feeble old man.”

  Newton sighed as he reflected upon the disaster and disgrace which might ensue from his mother’s violence of temper.

  “Eh! what, Mr Ramsden?” said Nicholas, who had been for some time contemplating the battered visage of his spouse. “Did you say, she’ll die?”

  “No, no, Mr Forster, there’s no fear of Mrs Forster, she’ll do well enough. She’ll be up and about again in a day or two, as lively as ever.”

  “God forbid!” muttered the absent Nicholas.

  “Mr Forster, see if I don’t pay you off for that, as soon as I’m up again,” muttered the recumbent lady, as well as the bandages passed under her chin would permit her.

  “Pray call early to-morrow, Mr Ramsden, and let us know how Mr Spinney is going on,” said Newton, extending his hand as the surgeon rose to depart. Mr Ramsden shook it warmly, and quitted the house: he had left them about half an hour when Betsy made her appearance with some fomentations, which had been prepared in the kitchen. Out of revenge for sundry blows daily received, and sundry epithets hourly bestowed upon her by her mistress, the moment she entered she exclaimed, in a half-crying tone, “O dear, Mr Newton! there’s such shocking news just come from the parsonage; Mr Spinney is just dead — and my Missis will be hanged!”